


That Your Fate was Mine

by s_solo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and More Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben is sadly still dead, Canon Compliant, F/M, Force Ghost Ben Solo, I promise there will be a happy ending!, Mild smut in Part 2, Never underestimate a droid, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rey is a wreck without Ben, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, We don't deserve BB-8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_solo/pseuds/s_solo
Summary: She had dreamt of him last night, as she had most nights since he disappeared. This time he had been sitting on top of the domed entrance to the Lars homestead, just as she had been last night. His face had been hidden in his hands, but she could tell he was upset. His shoulders shook visibly and his body trembled with each strained breath. She had called out to him, but he couldn’t hear her. She had reached out to him, but her fingers grasped at thin air. The dream felt real, but also impossible.▪    ▪    ▪Five months had passed since Ben died on Exegol. Each day was a painful reminder of his absence. But why hadn’t he come? At least to say goodbye?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Like mostly everyone, I was devastated by Ben Solo's untimely demise. But I don't for one second think that his death means the Reylo story has to end tragically! This is just one of my takes on how the story could unfold after the credits roll. 
> 
> This was supposed to be a short one-shot, but after writing over 8,000 words and realizing I had quite a bit left to write, I decided to split it up into two parts. Part One is mostly sad/angsty, but Part Two will have a bit of smut, fluff and of course a happy ending!
> 
> Thank you for reading and feel free to leave kudos or a comment if you are so inclined! :)

Twin suns sank towards the horizon, casting a pastel blanket over her world. A breeze floated in from the west, rustling through the sand with a faint _hiss._ Grains of sand danced on the dry wind and caught the suns’ final glow, twinkling like golden fireflies over the desert. Nearby, woodoos nested, singing their melodic songs to the darkening sky.

Dilapidated vaporaters and a meager homestead were the only structures for miles, and the only indication that sentient beings even knew this place existed. A passerby – if such a thing existed here – would not guess that the old moisture farm had in fact been inhabited for months now.

It wasn’t her intention to stay. Not originally. She had only meant to come here to bury the sabers, and to find closure. But it hadn’t happened that way.

A series of curious beeps came from the entrance to the house, and Rey sighed.

“I’ll be in in just a minute, Beebee.”

Another string of inquisitive beeps.

“I’m fine, Beebee. Honestly. I’ll be right there.”

The droid rolled back into the house and Rey closed her eyes, savoring the final rays of light from the dual suns. She wondered how many times Master Luke had stared at this same sunset as a boy, probably wishing for an adventure to whisk him away from this place. _Had it been worth it? If Luke had known how it would all turn out, would he have chosen a different path? Stayed on Tatooine and denied the will of the Force?_ Rey wondered how the fate of the galaxy would be different if Luke had stayed at his uncle’s home and lived out his years as a moisture farmer. _Certainly he would never have meet his sister, Leia. She wouldn’t have met Han. And Ben Solo would never have been born._

_Would that fate have been kinder?_

Begrudgingly, Rey turned away from the day’s last light and headed back towards the house.

It had been nearly five months since she and BB-8 had come to Tatooine on the _Falcon_ and sought out the old Lars homestead. BB-8 had been her only companion in that time. The little droid had more life than most humans, and Rey was grateful for the company. However as time wore on and Rey withdrew more and more into herself, the droid had become increasingly persistent. Constantly checking in on her and trying to cheer her up by relaying messages from their friends in the former Resistance. Rey appreciated the efforts, but mostly she wanted to be alone. Poe and Finn had insisted that BB-8 stay with her because _"you’re never going to be alone again, Rey.”_ She could hear Finn’s voice echoed in her mind, repeating the words he’d told her when she left. Well, Finn hadn’t been the first person to tell her that. But they were wrong; she _was_ alone.

Rey followed her nose into the kitchen, where she was greeted by the mouth-watering scent of a savory dish stewing on the hob. Master Leia had been right not to underestimate droids…BB-8 had quickly picked up domestic skills in another effort to brighten her mood in this self-imposed exile. Rey felt a pang of guilt for the lengths the little droid had gone to for her. She would never get used to the idea of someone else taking care of her. BB-8 should be with the Resistance, with Poe, helping dispel the broken remains of the First Order from the galaxy. Not here attempting to make something edible out of tato and H’Kak beans.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she sighed. Still, she grabbed a ladle and took a sip of the stew. It wasn’t bad.

BB-8 scoffed – if that was possible for a droid – and rolled to Rey’s feet, beeping indignantly.

“No, it tastes great. I still don’t know how you do that.” Seriously, subsisting on Tatooine without meat in your diet was no small feat. Making it taste good…that was an accomplishment worthy of galactic renown. _Yet another reason to feel unworthy of her droid companion._

Rey grabbed a bowl and ladled out a healthy portion of stew before grabbing a seat at the table.

“You really should go back to the Resistance,” she told BB-8. The droid looked up at her, somehow emoting sadness through its mechanical movements. She rested a hand on the droid’s domed head and smiled sadly. _How was it possible for a droid to be so compassionate?_

“I know you miss Poe.”

A dismissive beep.

“Yes, you do.”

Another, sadder response.

“Of course I would miss you.” Rey’s heart buried itself in her stomach, fresh guilt washing over her. “I’m not going to stay here forever,” she insisted, though she wasn’t sure it was true. “I just need more time.”

BB-8 chirped at her, asking one of the many questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

“Why don’t you go power down for the night? It’s been a long day,” she said, avoiding the inquiry entirely.

BB-8 whirred out a disappointed response before rolling out of the room and towards the Lars’ old garage.

Rey slumped further down into her chair, her mind warring between shame at her dismissal of the droid and relief at being left alone for the night. She noisily slurped her stew – table manners had never been her highest priority – and savored the kitchen’s quiet. If she focused hard enough, she could almost see a scene play out from another time…a simpler time.

_Young Luke Skywalker sitting at the table with his aunt and uncle. Complaining about feeling trapped on this dusty planet in the middle of nowhere. Not knowing what lay ahead, or the truth about his past, his family. Not knowing the darkness that was waiting in the corners of his mind to prey upon him. And certainly not knowing the consequence of his decision to leave this place. His biggest fears seeming insignificant in retrospect…_

Well, at least that was how Rey imagined it. And the fabricated memory hit painfully close to home.

Rey scarfed down the rest of her supper in silence, trying not to think about anything at all. The uneasy melancholy that had plagued her for months settled in comfortably for the night. It was familiar, but not welcome.

After dinner she walked aimlessly through the compound, taking care not to make any noise that would threaten to rouse BB-8. Before long she found herself outside, sitting cross-legged on top of the domed entryway to the house. Evenings here were surprisingly chilly, and she shivered in the crisp breeze. Trillions of stars shone in the sky above, providing the only illumination in an otherwise pitch black night.

Rey unclipped her lightsaber from her belt and fiddled with it in her hands. The kyber crystal inside purred gently, reassuringly, but that did nothing to soothe the pain in her chest. The dull, hollow ache that had been there since _he_ disappeared.

It had been five months since Exegol – since she had died, if that was the right word for it – and yet Rey remembered the scene as vividly as if it had happened only moments ago:

_At first there was nothing. Black. An empty background. An empty foreground. No thought. No sound. Nothing. Just black._

_And then where there had been nothing, suddenly there was something. A sensation. A pounding in her skull. Cold stone beneath her legs. And a soft, warm hand on her stomach. Her eyes had fluttered open to a face staring down at her. A face filled with worry, and with hope, and with longing. Ben Solo –_ her _Ben Solo. It only took a few seconds to realize what had happened, and in those seconds Rey came alive in a whole other sense. She had seen this in her Force vision back on Ahch-To: Ben Solo’s return to the light. He had stood with her when she needed him…as a partner…as the other half of the Dyad…as the other half of_ her _. And then he had saved her. Not like she had done for him on Kef Bir, simply transferring Force energy to heal a wound. No, this had been something else. He had pulled her back from the darkness, back to life._

_In that moment she knew that Kylo Ren was dead. Ben Solo was alive, and he was looking at her like…like she had only imagined in her deepest, most private thoughts. She whispered his name, and when he placed a tentative hand on her cheek she didn’t want to contain herself any longer. They had earned this beautiful, perfect moment. Nothing else in the galaxy seemed to matter as she leaned into him and pressed her lips against his. The Force vibrated between them with the contact, as if it had been waiting with baited breath for this exact moment in time. As if everything that had happened in their lives had been the Force leading them to this instant. Rey felt a sense of wholeness that she had been longing for since she could remember. And through their bond she could feel Ben’s emotions mirroring her own: years of conflict, rage and grief under the influence of Snoke; months of self-loathing as the Supreme Leader; all culminating in this moment of pure joy and relief._

_Every fiber of Rey’s being groaned with disappointment when she broke off the kiss, but the smile he gave her made it all worth it. She’d never seen him smile, not really. She decided that it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Until…something changed._

_Ben’s smile faltered, and the Force shuddered around them. She knew before he fell that he was gone. Shock and grief greeted her for a moment, but the Force eased the pain. There was a feeling of peace and resolution. Rey realized that he had sacrificed himself to bring her back, knowing full well what that meant. Their brief moment together had been a kindness, a small grace offered to them by the Force. But his body disappeared none the less._

_Rey had sat there, staring at his empty clothes on the floor, seeking solace in the Force’s will. This was his fate; as surely as Leia had sacrificed herself for Ben, Ben had sacrificed himself for her. She stroked the black shirt where his chest had been only seconds ago, willing herself to feel connected to him once more._

Rey closed her eyes and called out to the Force as she did every night, searching for any sign that Ben was still out there.

She was greeted by silence.

Disappointment bled hot and thick into her gut, churning in her stomach like acid. It wasn’t as if she expected any different…after all, it had been the same every night since she arrived. But the small shred of hope left inside her heart kept her going day after day, calling out for him by night, and then waking up hollow every morning just to do it all over again.

She had seen Luke and Leia her first night on Tatooine, when she had buried their sabers. So where was Ben? Why hadn’t he come back, even just to say goodbye?

At the time Rey had written it off, convincing herself that he would come soon enough. The feeling of resolution that she had felt through the Force when Ben died was enough to get her through those first rough days of isolation. But even that small comfort was fleeting. As the days wore on, Rey was less and less convinced that Ben was at peace in the Force, and that initial feeling was replaced with unease. A stirring in the Force that worried at the corners of her mind and set her on edge. He should have come…something was wrong.

And so she had waited.

She knew she should move on. Take BB-8, grab the _Falcon_ from the port she’d housed it at in Anchorhead, meet back up with her friends on Ajon Kloss or Coruscant, or wherever they were staying right now. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She couldn’t face Finn or Poe or Chewie, put on a smile and pretend like everything was okay. Like half of her soul hadn’t died with Ben on Exegol…

Rey opened her eyes and ignited her lightsaber, staring into its yellow blade even as the blinding light scorched her vision. She concentrated on the kyber crystal at its core: the kyber that had once been cracked and corrupted, tortured beyond its nature and wielded for the Dark side. The kyber that Kylo Ren had bled and deformed, and eventually coerced into his volatile hilted lightsaber. The same lightsaber he’d denounced on the ruins of the Death Star, tossing it away to be lost in the depths of the ocean. It hadn’t been hard to find, in the end. When she returned to Kef Bir on her way to Tatooine, it had called out to her like an old friend. That kyber crystal was the only living, sentient entity in the galaxy, besides herself, that shared a connection to Ben Solo. So it was no surprise how easily she’d recovered it, or how it had vibrated with life in her palm. Healing the crystal had been easy as well. Ben had already done the hard work: turning away from the Dark side of the Force. She healed it much like she’d healed Master Luke’s broken kyber crystal and the stab wound she’d inflicted on Ben. The kyber had glowed brightly, almost sighing in relief at casting off its dark influences, before turning a brilliant shade of white that then faded into its final, golden glow.

The process was meant to be cathartic. She believed, surely, that healing Kylo Ren’s kyber crystal would connect her in the ways she was meant to be connected to him. But after months of disappointment, the humming of the crystal and the soft affirmations of its life Force failed to bring Rey any comfort. If anything it felt cruel, as if the Force was mocking her for failing to communicate with him.

She switched the blade off with an angry swipe of her thumb and threw it out into the night. She could hear its soft thud in the sand where it landed, and she clenched her fists against the twinge of guilt in her fingertips. But it was no use. The saber cried out to her through the darkness, begging to return to its place at her side. With a heavy heart, Rey jumped down from her perch and summoned her saber to her hand. Its kyber core thrummed with relief as she attached it to her belt, but to Rey it only served to emphasize what was missing.

▪ ▪ ▪

Master Luke’s old bedroom looked as if it had been preserved in a time capsule beginning the day he’d left Tatooine. Rey had been surprised when she’d found it that first night. Salvaged ship and droid parts littered the room in various states of repair; a well-worn pilot’s helmet hung on the back of a chair; even the bed was unmade, as if a teenage Luke might come skipping back into the room at any second to tidy up.

Rey walked to the dusty wardrobe in the corner and knelt down before it. She rummaged around inside the bottom drawer for a moment before extracting a large piece of black fabric from its hiding place. Rey stripped down to her underclothes before slipping the massive black shirt over her head. She stood there for a long moment, hugging the fabric tightly to herself. It smelled of sweat, and of ocean salt, and just a hint of spice. The scent made her eyes sting with unshed tears, but she held them back.

She laid down on the bed and curled up in a ball, stretching the black tunic down over her legs. Mindlessly, she fingered the hole in the fabric near her stomach; the one that she had inflicted.

She remembered the way he had looked at her that day, after she healed him. The way his eyes had searched hers for an explanation…for any reason that she had saved him. He looked at her like he didn’t deserve to be saved…

It was the same look he’d given her in the woods on Starkiller Base.

And in the rain storm on Ahch-To.

And in the hut when they touched hands for the first time.

And when he’d kneeled before her in the bunker on Crait.

That look had confused her at first. Later it had given her hope that his heart could still be turned back to the light. But now, imagining that look in her mind, Rey’s heart ached. Ben Solo _did_ deserve to be saved. He deserved a chance at life. But she was the only person in the entire galaxy, besides Leia, that could see that.

Rey couldn’t remember when the tears had started to fall, but she realized then that her pillow was soaked. She buried her face in his shirt and blotted at her wet cheeks. So quietly that she could barely hear herself, Rey whispered, “Be with me.”

Wind whipped through the sand outside, but inside the room was silent.

“Be with me.”

Somber quiet, followed by sobs that sliced violently through the silence.

▪ ▪ ▪

Rey woke to salt-stained cheeks and sparkling sunlight streaming through the open door. Her hand dangled limply over the side of the bed, and she felt cold metal beneath her fingers tips. She peered over the edge to find BB-8 stationed there, the droid’s domed head resting against her open palm. Rey brushed a rogue tear off of her cheek with her shoulder and stroked BB-8’s head. She definitely didn’t deserve this droid.

She had dreamt of him last night, as she had most nights since he disappeared. This time he had been sitting on top of the domed entrance to the Lars homestead, just as she had been last night. His face had been hidden in his hands, but she could tell he was upset. His shoulders shook visibly and his body trembled with each strained breath. She had called out to him, but he couldn’t hear her. She had reached out to him, but her fingers grasped at thin air. The dream felt real, but also impossible.

Rey sat up in bed suddenly, shaking off the weight of her subconscious thoughts. It wouldn’t do to dwell on her dreams – or nightmares, which was a more honest term for it.

A concerned series of beeps came from below. She looked down to see BB-8 peering up at her, looking somehow more human than most people.

“It’s hard to explain, Beebee-ate,” she replied quietly.

The little droid chirped sadly and withdrew a mechanical arm from a hidden compartment, reaching up with it and softly tugging at the hem of the black tunic.

“I wish I could explain everything to you.” _But I don’t even know how to explain it to myself._

She scooted off of the bed and sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged next to BB-8. “You know you’re better to me than I deserve, right?”

The droid trilled a sarcastic response, and Rey smiled despite herself. Right. Now it was time to shake off the night’s self-pity and get at least a few hours of productivity in before the worst of the melancholy returned.

“Shall we run the training course?”

▪ ▪ ▪

The sand was loose and overly-forgiving beneath her boots. Every step of her run required twice the effort, as she sank into ground with every footfall. Miniature laser bolts flew over her shoulders, fired by the haphazard training droids that she had cobbled together from spare parts. BB-8 whirled along beside her, kicking up clouds of sand in their wake.

Rey crested a dune and was met head-on by a third training bot. Anticipating the impact, Rey leapt up and over the adversary, cartwheeling in midair while deflecting a laser blast with her saber. She landed on the peak of the neighboring dune, pursued closely by all of the droids.

When the fourth and final opponent emerged from behind a crumbling vaporator, Rey didn’t hesitate to attack. She dodged a blow from its powerful arm – really a modified hydraulic limb from a binary load lifter – and somersaulted to the right. The droid’s moment of hesitation was all she needed; she stabbed out with her saber and impaled it directly through the chest plate. The droid staggered backwards into the moisture vaporator and crumpled into a sitting position before losing power completely.

Rey was ready to turn and finish off her pursuers, but something about the way the droid had collapsed caught her attention. She spared it another glance, and the resemblance stopped her dead in her tracks. For a moment the droid morphed into Kylo Ren, propped up against the vaporator, a gaping hole in his abdomen and a look of shock in his eyes.

Rey stumbled backwards, heart pounding against her rib cage. She gasped for breath but her chest felt tight, like a gloved hand had a vice grip on her lungs.

A laser bolt caught her in the shoulder from behind, scorching her flesh. She whipped around to confront the assailant, but she was caught off balance by another blast to her arm. Rey howled in agony that had little to do with the fresh wounds. She slashed out wildly with her saber, slicing the head off of the nearest droid. Another bolt to her side, and Rey forgot her saber entirely, instead reaching out towards the final two training droids with both hands and channeling her fury though the Force. The droids crumpled in on themselves, metal crunching against metal until they were nothing more than jagged heaps of junk.

Rey craned her neck around to look at place where Kylo’s image had been only moments before, but he was gone. The first droid she took out was back in its place, dead metal slumped against the vaporator.

She took a few steadying breaths, but tears stung at her eyes nonetheless. His face burned in her memory, and she couldn’t stand it any longer. She took off at full speed, sprinting back towards the Lars homestead and leaving a confused BB-8 beeping frantically behind her.

The garage was the first placed she sought out. She needed to do something with her hands…fix something, destroy something, it didn’t matter. She just needed _something_ to distract from the hopelessness burning through her veins like wildfire.

Rey didn’t bother opening the door; she barged through instead, using the Force to blast the metal door straight off of its hinges. Inside she looked around for _anything_ to do. She spotted a half-completed training remote she’d gotten distracted away from a few weeks ago. Grabbing a handful of miscellaneous tools and pulling up a chair, Rey resumed working on the remote.

But his face haunted her. The memory of his dark eyes bore straight into her soul, piercing through every pathetic wall she tried to keep up during the hot days on Tatooine. And his lips…the way they quivered with emotion and regret…the image was imprinted in her mind.

When she closed her eyes she could see him in vivid detail, and when she opened her eyes she could still feel him there.

Five Force-damned months in this place and she couldn’t stop needing him! She mourned during the day and cried herself to sleep every night, and yet the pain didn’t ease. If anything it had continued to worsen. The grief had mutated into anger, and despair, and agony.

Every moment of pain she’d felt since Ben died came to a head in that moment, ripping through her chest and leaving a gaping chasm in its path.

This rage…it wasn’t who she was. She was cognizant of that fact, but she was powerless to fight it. She didn’t _want_ to be okay anymore. She wanted to feel this pain without shame. She wanted to _hurt_ something like she had been hurt. She wanted to—

The training remote sparked with raw electricity in her hand, caving beneath the pressure of her fingers. She knew it was counter-productive to destroy something she’d spent hours building, but it felt… _good_.

Rey chucked the crumpled sphere across the room, where it collided with the wall and shattered into a mess of broken electronics.

Next thing she knew, her yellow lightsaber blade was carving a path through the garage, leaving a trail of smoking metal and ruined droid parts. Rey was crying. Tears streamed down her cheeks in hot, thick sheets. Screams were ripped unbidden from her throat and echoed off of the walls, filling the small room with noise that sounded as terrible as she felt. And then her lightsaber was lost in the rubble she had created, and her bare hands began tearing at the objects around her.

Blood was dripping down her fingertips by the time her knees gave out, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor. Dry sobs wracked her body and she brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and holding her broken self together as best she could. Her cries were the only sound to break the silence, until—

“Rey.”

The voice floated to her from the other side of the room, soft yet deep, strong but pained. Rey shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out whatever new torture device the Force had cooked up for her now.

“Rey, please.”

She clutched at the sides of her head, covering her ears against that voice.

But it had sounded so… _real_.

There was silence for a moment; long enough for Rey to lower her hands and wipe fresh tears off with her armbands. _It was just a memory_ , she told herself. Another trick of her mind, conjured up to make sure she didn’t forget what she’d lost.

But that didn’t stop her breath from hitching in her throat as she rolled onto her hands and knees and lifted her head toward the sound.

_Ben._

Rey’s heart jolted in her chest, but the rest of her body became rigid. She was terrified to move, terrified to blink, for fear that he would be gone when she opened her eyes again.

He looked…different. The same, but somehow different. Other than the soft blue glow he now emitted, of course. His black hair was long and thick, framing his face in perfect waves. In place of his intimidating black attire he now wore a long white shirt coupled with a tan tunic that was cinched at the waist with a thick brown belt. His scar was gone, as it had been when she’d last seen him on Exegol. But the expression he wore…that was disturbingly familiar. She saw the same pain in his eyes that she’d seen so many times before. The way he was staring at her…it was as if he couldn’t bear to be in her presence. The corners of his lips twitched downwards, and his eyes were wet with unshed tears.

Rey couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. She could only stare at him, unblinking, from her crouched position on the floor.

Ben’s hands hung restlessly at his sides, clenching and unclenching his ungloved fingers. He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed it. The very air between them held its breath, scared to disturb the fragile tension of their reunion. But finally—

“I’m sorry, Rey.” His voice was heartbreakingly tender.

Rey didn’t trust her eyes or her ears. This was all wrong. Why would he be here, now, staring at her like that? Apologizing for…what? Without breaking eye contact, Rey hoisted herself to her feet and crossed the room to where he stood. Ben’s eyes grew wider with each step she took in his direction, until she was standing directly before him, staring up into their depths.

She reached out a hand, painfully slowly, and placed it on his chest. Despite his translucent appearance, her fingers came to rest on coarse fabric, covering the solid muscle that was Ben Solo. Rey’s mind barely spared a passing thought for the intriguing physics of Force Ghosts before she was inching backwards, trying to put distance between herself and Ben.

“Where were you?” she asked in a small voice.

Ben opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

Rey’s brow furrowed, awe morphing visibly into confusion, and then into anger. When she repeated the question, it sounded more like an accusation: “Where were you?”

Ben shook his head, eyes wide and helpless. But still he said nothing.

“Where were you?!” Now she was yelling. She shouldn’t be mad at him, she knew that, but she had suffered for so long, and suddenly she had an outlet to release that emotion. He had _saved_ her, but then he had _left_ her.

If Ben was surprised by her reaction, he didn’t show it. Quite the opposite, he actually looked guilty. As if she was right to yell at him. The muscle under his left eye twitched involuntarily as a single tear slid down his cheek. His lips quivered and he searched her face with his eyes, as if trying to memorize it.

And just like that, the fury in Rey’s chest deflated. Fresh tears spilled down her face. She couldn’t bear to see him like this. She would relive the last five months on repeat for eternity if it meant she could ease the suffering in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean for it to be like this,” he whispered, pleading for forgiveness with his eyes.

“Like what?” She wasn’t sure what he was talking about – what had he meant for it to be like?

“Like this,” he said, gesturing around him with open hands.

Rey glanced around the room at the destruction she’d caused, and it dawned on her how pathetic she must look.

“I…I don’t—”

“Like this,” he repeated, stepping towards her and grabbing her wrists. He held them up, inspecting the slew of cuts across her palms and fingers, slick with blood.

Rey closed her eyes, mortified of the tantrum that he’d clearly observed. Warm lips pressed against her palm, and Rey’s eyes fluttered back open to watch Ben kiss his way from her fingertips to her wrist. He inhaled deeply – _could Force ghosts smell?_ – against her wrist and rested his forehead against her forearm.

“I thought it would be different,” he murmured against her skin.

“It’s…I—I’m fine,” she lied.

Ben exhaled sharply and shook his head against her arm. “No you’re not.”

Rey couldn’t argue. Even if she wanted to, she could barely piece together a rational thought, much less a bold-faced lie about how well she was coping. Her heart was still drumming wildly against her rib cage at his sudden appearance. Even the simple contact of his fingers and forehead against her arms was hard to process. The Force vibrated with energy around and through her, threatening to bring her to her knees. The emptiness that had long ago burrowed deep into her core was now awake; a spark lit the opposite end of the Force bond that had been cold for five cruel months. 

None of it made sense.

“I don’t understand,” she breathed.

Ben straightened up and met her disoriented gaze with his own, but never releasing her wrists.

“I thought this,” he gestured to his translucent blue form, “would be different. I thought it would be easier to be around you.”

“To be around me?” Rey repeated, thoroughly dazed. “But you haven’t—”

“Rey.” His eyes softened, pitying her.

It took a few moments, but when his unspoken meaning sank in, Rey’s stomach roiled with the realization.

“You’ve been…around? Here?”

The pain in Ben’s eyes was all the confession she needed. Understanding seeped into her bloodstream and pooled in her stomach, poisoning her from the inside out.

“How? What?! I—”

“I couldn’t face you. I…Rey…I’m sorry.”

“Couldn’t face me?” _It still doesn’t make any sense._ “How were you—?” _None of the pieces fit together._ “I would have sensed you here.”

“My presence was masked, Rey,” he explain quietly, shamefully.

“But why would you…?”

“Because I didn’t want you to know I was here.”

The words hit Rey like a slap across the face. She ripped her wrists from his grip and turned her back to him, trying to hide the feeling of betrayal that was written plainly across her face. _He didn’t want to…_

Without turning back to look in his direction, she whispered, “You could see me? You knew I was… _this?_ ” Rey held out her arms out to emphasize the wretched state she’d fallen into since he left.

“It’s more complicated than tha—”

“How can it be?!”

“Please hear me out,” he pleaded, desperation painting his words. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but Rey jerked away.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried, still unable to turn and face him. Instead she pivoted towards the entrance of the garage, blew past the broken door and headed out into the open center of the compound. She needed to breathe fresh air immediately.

Ben’s footsteps fell in step behind her, following closely in silence. When Rey stopped in the middle of the courtyard, he stopped as well.

“You should be angry with me,” he admitted from behind her.

Rey squeezed her eyes shut and raised her hands to her head, trying but failing to get a grip on her racing thoughts.

Ben must have taken her silence as an invitation, because he continued speaking.

“I knew what choice I was making, Rey. And I would make the same choice every time.”

Rey’s eyes fluttered open in response to the honesty in his voice. _It still doesn’t make sense._ Her body moved of its own accord, turning slowly to look at him, despite the protests of her rational mind.

“You deserved to live, Rey…more than I ever did.”

Rey opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.

“Exchanging my life for yours was the easiest decision I ever made.”

New tears formed in the corners of Rey’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. None of this explained why he hid himself from her. She needed answers, not sentiment. But before she could say so, Ben was speaking again.

“I thought dying would be easy. That I would feel…peace, I guess?” His voice was audibly quieter when he added, “That’s how Luke used to describe it.”

Rey shivered at the mention of his uncle…his old master. That may have been the first time she ever heard Ben speak Luke’s name without hatred. Something about that fact made her heart feel heavy.

“Luke talked about becoming one with the Force. Becoming something greater than yourself. But I feel…,” his voice broke, but he pressed on, “…less.”

_Less._

That single word, four letters, rang in Rey’s ears.

_Less._

_What does that even mean?_

“I still don’t understand, Ben,” she said, all traces of anger gone. She watched his jaw muscle clench and unclench as he weighed the words on his tongue.

“Kylo Ren died when you healed me on the Death Star. For the first time in my life I was free. And so when I saw you…laying there…” – his eye twitched at the painful memory – “…dead…I…I couldn’t go back to an existence that didn’t include you.”

The tears Rey had been holding back burst forth at his admission. It was all too much: him being here, admitting he’d hid himself from her, and now this confession. Rey felt lightheaded and her breath was coming in short gasps. Starbursts flashed across her field of vision as darkness crept in at the corners.

And then he was grabbing her shoulders, leading her to a chair in the kitchen. He was pouring water from a tall jug and holding a cup to her lips. His free hand rubbed her back tenderly as she sipped the cool water. Despite the fact that her thoughts and vision were rapidly returning to homeostasis, Rey’s heart was still racing as Ben stomped into the ‘fresher and returned with an armful of medical supplies.

Grabbing the water jug from the counter, he knelt between her legs and guided her hands to rest in midair, palms skyward. Cool water trickled over her palms and between her fingers, washing away the blood that had already started to dry. The contact stung her wounds, but the physical pain paled in comparison to the ache in her heart. So many things were still unsaid. And maybe their Force bond was still live, because she could have sworn that he read her mind.

“I haven’t forgotten that I owe you an explanation,” he muttered, eyes studying her sliced hands. He picked up a bacta patch from his scavenged collection and began applying it – very carefully – to her right hand. His fingers worked their way over her sensitive skin, careful not to apply too much pressure on any of the cuts.

“You have a lot to live for, Rey.”

Images of her friends flashed through her mind: Finn and Poe playing Dejarik, laughing hysterically and beckoning her to join; Chewie patiently teaching her how to repair the _Falcon’s_ sub-alternators; Rose’s eyes lighting up when she told stories about her sister, Paige; BB-8 making a special pallie pudding to raise her spirits during a particularly nasty sandstorm.

Rey wanted to contradict him; explain that he had just as much to live for as she did. But once again he took the words right out of her mouth:

“Whatever you’re about to say, it’s not true. My parents are gone. I have nothing. I _am_ nothing…without you.”

“Ben—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted her. “I’m not a fool, Rey. I know I burned every bridge I ever crossed. I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m just telling the truth.”

She kept her expression neutral for his sake, but inside Rey’s heart bled with compassion, because she knew that his words were true.

“Giving you back the life you deserve was probably the only truly good deed I ever did,” he continued. “Letting go was easy…it made sense. But coming back was…”

He left the sentence hanging in the air between them, and silence stretched on in its place. He finished adhering the bacta patch to her second hand and grabbed a roll of bandages from the pile. He wrapped up her right hand with more care than was necessary, then proceeded to tear the end of the bandage with his teeth. He replicated the process on her left hand before returning the roll to the pile and placing his hands on her thighs, still kneeling before her. His eyes rose to meet her gaze, blazing with an intensity that sparked something inside Rey that had nothing to do with sympathy.

“I don’t feel at peace,” he admitted. “It hurts.”

“What hurts?”

“Seeing you.”

_Oh._

She didn’t have a response for that.

“I was here, Rey, that first night. When you buried the sabers.”

Rey’s throat tightened, making each word she uttered feel like a knife stabbing at her from the inside. “Why didn’t you come to me? Tell me the truth.”

He mulled over her question for a moment that seemed to last an eternity.

“I bought into that ‘death equals tranquility’ Jedi banthashit. But the truth is that when I saw you I just felt…angry. Like my entire life was a series of tragedies that somehow, miraculously brought me to you. And I had a taste of that life. A fucking taste. And then it was gone.”

Ben paused to take a deep, quavering breath before continuing.

“I couldn’t come to terms with that. Every time I looked at you I saw what I’d given up…and what I’ll never again have.”

Tears gathered in his eyes, wetting his eyelashes and glistening in the rapidly fading sunlight.

Rey was stilling having a hard time processing his words. It almost sounded like…

“So you chose to stay away, even when you knew that I needed you?” The statement wasn’t meant to be accusatory, but Ben’s expression visibly sagged under the weight of his guilt.

“I’m not the person you think I am. You’re the strong one…I couldn’t handle it. It killed me to see you like that. Because you were hurting, yes, but also because I’m selfish!” His voice was rising now, almost to a shout. “I don’t know how to comfort you when I’m so…so…lost! Giving up the Dark side didn’t automatically make me a good person, Rey. I don’t know how to be there for you when I can’t even face you!”

Ben’s chest was rising and falling rapidly as he attempted to control his breathing. Rey was struck by the vulnerability of his words. She was furious and hurt by his absence, but she couldn’t ignore the sincerity of his remorse.

“You didn’t even try,” she said, but the words came out much gentler than she intended.

“Don’t act like you know what I’ve been through!”

His words struck a nasty cord in Rey’s chest. She stood up suddenly from her chair and sent Ben staggering backwards onto the floor with an involuntary lash of Force energy. She hardly noticed the look of shock in his eyes or the way it morphed into indignation as he rose to his feet.

“I’ve called out to you every night since Exegol! Begging you to show yourself. And the whole time you were just, what? Watching?!”

“That’s not how it—”

“You told me I wasn’t alone!” she interrupted furiously, allowing her rage to flow freely through her. “In the hut on Ahch-To, that’s what you said. But you left me! _Alone!_ ”

“I can’t make you happy like this!”

“You don’t get to decide what makes me happy or not!”

“Listen to me: I’m not even alive! For Force sake, Rey, I’m a kriffing ghost!” Ben laughed, but it was cold and mirthless.

“You’re still _you_ ,” she objected.

To emphasize the point, she closed the gap between them and rested her bandaged hands against his chest. He was a Force Ghost, yes, but he was still solid flesh, standing before her, speaking to her. She could _feel_ him. Ben placed his hands on her hips, as if by pure instinct. He held her steady and close, but the mournful resolution was unchanging in his eyes.

“You deserve to live the life you’ve always dreamt of. I can’t give that to you.”

“What are you—?”

“I will never be able to give you children, Rey.”

His words took Rey’s breath away…the thought had never even crossed her mind. She didn’t even know if she wanted…

“Don’t pretend,” he grunted, once again coming suspiciously close to reading her thoughts. “I’ve been inside your mind; I know you want to have a family…you want to give your children the life you never had.”

Tears that had long since dried were now met with new tears that meandered down Rey’s cheeks in heart-breaking rivulets. She didn’t know that he knew that, and right now she wished it wasn’t true.

But Ben didn’t stop there.

“I’ll never grow old with you.”

His eyes bore into hers, heavy with pain and the sad, evil truth of their situation.

“It’s no use pretending like _this_ ,” he squeezed her waist, “could ever be more.”

“Ben, no,” she pleaded, though what exactly she was pleading for, she wasn’t sure. At the very least she wanted him to stop talking. Every word he spoke was like a dagger to her heart. This conversation was his second death…she was losing him all over again.

“I figured if I didn’t show up then eventually you would just move on.”

Rey’s insides twisted painfully at the thought. “Move on? How could I?”

“I gave you your life back, Rey. The least you could do is live it.”

_Ouch._

His words sliced through her. He was speaking the truth, as usual, but she didn’t want to hear it. She knew good and well that by staying on Tatooine she was wasting his sacrifice. But…

Rey wrapped her arms around his midsection and flattened her body against him, pressing her face into his chest, so that when she opened her mouth to speak her words were barely audible:

“But I don’t want to live without you.”

At her words, Ben’s body sagged against hers, holding her impossibly closer and molding to fit her shape. He placed a large hand on the back of her head and crossed her back protectively with the other. He bowed his head, resting the side of his face on the top of her head. Fresh wetness mingled with the sweat in Rey’s hair, and she realized that he was crying.

She clutched at the fabric of his shirt, wishing if she hugged him close enough he wouldn’t be able to leave. He inhaled sharply in response to the increased pressure, his body beginning to shake softly.

“Don’t leave me again, Ben,” she breathed into the warmth of his torso.

“Rey…” he began in a shaky voice, but she didn’t wait to hear what he was going to say.

Before she could stop herself, Rey blurted out the three words she’d never once uttered since her parents left her on Jakku:

“I love you.”


	2. Part Two

_I love you_.

The confession had barely left her mouth when Ben stiffened beneath her embrace, clearly shocked by those three words. Even Rey was shocked at herself for admitting her feelings so recklessly. But it was true, and it had been true for longer than she liked to admit. She loved him. _Still_ loved him, regardless of any protest he could make about being “technically” dead.

For a long moment neither of them said anything. Ben continued standing there, holding her in rigid arms, barely daring to breathe.

Rey chanced a glance up at him, craning her neck to stare into his eyes. Pain was evident in his gaze, like her admission caused him tremendous torture. But there was something else in his eyes, too. As much as he tried, he couldn’t hide the amazement he felt at hearing her speak those words out loud.

Her heart pounded furiously as she watched his eyes flick to her lips, just for the briefest moment, but it was enough. Rey raised herself up on her tiptoes, grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down to meet her halfway. Their lips met for only the second time ever, but it felt like home, as if fitting together was their sole function. The kiss was soft and tender, speaking far more truths than Rey could ever put into words.

But Ben pulled back suddenly – too suddenly – and gaped down at her, his expression a mixture of surprise, longing, and guilt. His dark brown eyes locked onto her hazel ones, passion and not a small amount of confusion passing between them. Ben’s chest rose and fell heavily, his breathing ragged. Rey felt warmth bloom in the pit of her stomach, her emotions teetering dangerously close to hopeful.

His lips quivered, and Rey couldn’t stop from glancing down at them. The heartache of the last five months was nearly forgotten as desire unfolded inside of her. It had been so long since she’d even let herself imagine that she’d be here again, holding him, touching him.

Ben’s hands slid down her back and rested on her hips. They were so large they nearly spanned her entire waist, and Rey felt utterly and deliciously safe.

He tilted his face down to hers, pausing with just centimeters left between them.

“We shouldn’t Rey,” he breathed, but the objection didn’t reach his eyes. She dug her fingers into his back, silently urging him to close the distance. He didn’t require much persuasion.

Ben’s lips met hers with more pressure this time, and Rey melted into the kiss. His lips moved over hers with an urgency that was terrifying yet exquisite.

She had never experienced anything like this before. Growing up as a scavenger on Jakku didn’t exactly leave a lot of room for romance, even the make-believe, day-dream kind. And the kiss she and Ben had shared on Exegol was intimate and exciting and celebratory, but it was nothing like _this_ kiss.

Ben’s lips were unbelievably soft, but there was nothing soft about the way he was kissing her. There was a possessiveness about it, like he was promising to be the first and last person to ever kiss her like that. His arms tightened around her, pressing her lean body into his muscular one with almost painful strength.

Rey’s heart was dangerously close to beating right out of her chest. Her body trembled with anticipation and fear. She wondered if this was all too good to be true; if she opened her eyes would it all have been a dream? But his body was warm and protective around her, and any doubts drained from her mind just as quickly as they’d arrived.

Her tongue flicked across his lips, begging for an invitation. Ben parted his lips in answer, coaxing an involuntary moan out of Rey. He was warm and sweet and perfect, and the sensation sent goosebumps straight down her spine.

A million questions popped in and out of Rey’s mind at dizzying speeds: _Do Force ghosts actually breathe? Is his body supposed to be warm? Why does his tongue taste like those sweet honey cakes Poe used to bake? Can Force ghosts take their clothes off? And if so, what happens to their clothes once they’re removed??_

Rey forced the persistent thoughts out of her mind. This wasn’t exactly a “normal” scenario, and she didn’t think it would help the situation to get lost in the details.

Instead, she decided to find out for herself.

Her hands searched his torso for access to skin, but his new Jedi-esque outfit was frustratingly secure. She reached for his belt, but her bandaged hands fumbled clumsily with the clasp. Thankfully Ben noticed the struggle and pushed her hands aside, removing the belt in a single swift motion and letting it fall, forgotten, to the floor.

Rey’s fingers lingered at the hem of his tunic for a long moment before slowly sliding beneath the fabric and making contact with warm, soft skin. Tension built as her hands rose higher, exploring the taut muscles of his back as best she could despite the bandages covering her palms. Muscles she wasn’t even aware of tightened in her core, sending delicious shivers to every nerve-ending in her body.

Ben shuddered when her fingernails dragged across his skin, tracing their way back to that heavenly hollow on his lower back. The very idea that her fingers could elicit that kind of physical response was a thrilling ego boost. She deepened the kiss, trying to taste as much of him as humanly possible.

It was unbelievable how the heartache of the recent past faded more and more with each passing moment. Every tear she’d shed was slowly washed away and replaced with the sensations of his lips on hers, his hands roaming her body, and his tongue exploring her mouth. She was drunk off of the intimacy – she’d never experienced this much physical contact in one go in her entire life. In fact, this was more skin-to-skin contact than she’d had in all her thirteen years on Jakku.

Every fear that had haunted her since Exegol was erased. He was here. _Here._ Kissing her with a hunger that equaled her own. He _wanted_ her, badly. She could feel his need through the Force, and suddenly she was keenly aware of his need pressing against her belly.

_Oh Force._

Rey had never…not even…nope. She’d never even been the object of someone’s sexual desire, as far as she was aware. The realization was electrifying. Parts of her body were awake and aching – parts she’d never even known were _there_. And she wanted _more_.

As if reading her mind for the tenth time since he arrived, Ben yanked his undershirt and tunic off in one fluid movement, leaving his chest completely bare. His hands then grabbed for her belt, unhooking it and shoving it down to her ankles. His lips traveled to her jaw as he started removing her bindings, and he sucked and licked his way thirstily past her ear and down the sensitive skin of her neck. Rey clawed at her arm wraps and bands – she needed as much skin against him as possible – but her bandaged hands undermined her progress. Growling in frustration, she ripped the bandages and bacta patches off of her hands (only briefly noticing how the cuts had already begun to heal and turn pink) before removing her wraps with little effort.

She had only just dropped the last of her arm bands to the floor when Ben was sliding his hands under her shirt and lifting it up and over her head. She raised her arms to help him, too needy to feel self-conscious. He began fiddling with her chest wraps, trying to distinguish between where it started and where it stopped, when a cold breeze swept past. Goosebumps rose on her bare stomach and sent a chill straight through her. Ben must have noticed, because he leaned back and studied her face carefully, lust mixing with just a hint of concern.

Rey stared back, abruptly aware of the fact that the suns had set and the only natural light now came from one of Tatooine’s three moons floating lazily in the sky above the compound. The artificial blue light of the kitchen added to the illusion of cold, and Rey shivered again.

Without warning, Ben swept Rey into his arms and marched out of the kitchen.

“Where are we--?” she started to ask, but shut her mouth when she realized he was heading straight for Master Luke’s old bedroom.

Another series of questions streamed through her head, but they died before they ever made it to her lips as Ben crossed the cramped room and deposited her softly on the unmade bed. He stood over her, breath shallow as his eyes roved her entire body. The room had always seemed a bit small, but it was positively dwarfed by Ben’s immense size.

They stayed like that – Rey sitting on the bed and Ben towering over her – appraising each other in silence for a long moment. Rey’s heart was pounding in her ears, drowning out all rational thought except for a primal need to lose herself in him, wholly and completely.

Without breaking his intense study of her face and body, Ben began unlacing his trousers and shoving them down his muscular legs. Rey peeled off her chest wrappings, exposing herself to Ben in a way she’d never been exposed to anyone. She kicked off her boots and began unlacing her own pants, just in time to glance up and see Ben, slacked jawed, gazing hungrily at her freshly bared skin.

“Rey…” he whispered, swallowing thickly and looking dazed, unable to finish whatever he was going to say. Instead of speaking, he bent over and grabbed the bottom of her white trousers, yanking hard. Rey fisted her hands in the sheets, bracing herself against the bed so she wasn’t pulled unceremoniously to the floor along with her pants.

Now they were both completely stripped down, save the thin layer of tan undershorts that Rey still donned. Her eyes traveled greedily across his body, feeling a flare of heat in her lower belly at the sight of his muscular arms, broad shoulders, thick chest, toned abdomen and – her eyes wandered lower – the _sizable_ evidence of his pure need. Heat crept into her cheeks, and Rey raised her eyes back to his upper body, too embarrassed to keep staring _there_ , despite the way it made the muscles in her core clench deliciously.

It occurred to her that he had not a single scar or imperfection on his entire body. Was that a Force ghost thing, or had she unknowingly healed _all_ of his scars when she’d healed the lightsaber wound? Either way, she was suddenly keenly aware of every single cut, bruise and scar on her body – of which there were many. Instinctively, she crossed her arms over her chest and grabbed the upper arms of the opposite side, taking special care to cover the large scar she’d received from the vibro-arbir blade of a Praetorian Guard.

A crease formed between Ben’s brows, painting his face with concern.

“Don’t,” he shook his head, bending forward to grab her wrists and gently pull them to her sides.

Rey flushed a furious shade of pink, averting her eyes to stare everywhere and anywhere except him. She was deeply ashamed of what little she had to offer. She’d dreamt of this moment since she first laid eyes on him two years ago – not that she’d ever admit that fact aloud – but now that it was happening, she was mortified.

After months of isolation, she was skin and bones. She’d trained so hard and eaten so little that she could count her own ribs. And what she lacked in feminine appeal was certainly not made up for in experience. She’d never even seen a naked man before, much less interacted with one. Yet here he stood before her, muscular and flawless and confident, and she felt hopelessly inadequate.

“Rey, look at me.”

Reluctantly, she met his steady gaze. His eyes reflected nothing of the insecurity she felt; instead he looked at her like she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

“You are beautiful.”

_He’s just saying that._

“I’m not just saying that.”

Rey blinked, confused by their bond that had clearly outlived death, but also stunned by the sincerity in his voice. Strangely, she could even feel his honesty through the Force. He _did_ mean it. He was just as mesmerized by her as she was him. Rey shivered, despite the perfectly comfortable temperature in Luke’s room.

“Do you want to stop?” he asked, taking her shiver to mean something very different.

Rey pressed her lips together and shook her head. Stopping was the last thing she wanted.

Ben sank to his knees before her, positioning his body between her legs and resting his hands on either side of her on the bed. They were face to face, so close she could feel his warm breath on her face.

“Do you want to stop?” he repeated.

Rey shook her head more vigorously and leaned forward, closing the distance between them.

Ben pulled his head back slightly, enough to halt her approach.

“Say it,” he growled, voice low and demanding. Heat flamed between her thighs at the way his eyes stared at her lips expectantly, not willing to relent until she said the words.

“I don’t want to stop.”

“Good.” It was an innocuous word, but the way he purred it was obscene, and Rey’s thighs clenched reflexively, begging for friction.

Ben’s eyes held her gaze as his fingers traced their way up her thighs and came to a rest on her hips, fiddling with the hem of her undershorts. Rey gulped as his fingers wound their way around the waistband and pulled downwards. Without hesitation she lifted her hips off the bed, allowing him to drag the soft fabric down her legs and past her ankles. She expected him to toss the last piece of clothing to the floor, but instead he held the shorts in his hands, feeling the fabric between his fingers. Without breaking eye contact, he balled the underwear in one fist and held it to his nose, inhaling deeply. His eyes closed briefly, but when he opened them they were blazing with lust.

Rey’s breath hitched in her throat, scarcely believing what she was seeing. It should have been strange or embarrassing or even gross, but it was the single most erotic thing she’d ever witnessed. Rey grabbed the back of his head, spreading her fingers through his thick black waves, and pulled his face to hers. They crashed together, lips and tongues and teeth colliding with desperation.

All insecurities were lost as they fought to placate their mutual need for each other. Rey tried to memorize every detail: his solid body lowering on top of hers, his warm hands exploring her body, his lips pressed against her throat.

They were intoxicated with want, feeding off each other to soothe the ache. The craving for more was so intense that Rey forgot her own shyness about her sexual ignorance. When Ben ducked his head between her legs, she didn’t hesitate to spread them wider. When he dipped a finger inside her and then slid the same finger into his mouth, tasting it, Rey moaned loudly. And when he lowered his tongue to trace the sensitive skin there, she curled her fingers in his hair to pull him even closer. There was no remaining self-consciousness or awkwardness between them. The very lines between reality and fantasy blurred as Ben’s mouth and tongue pushed her further to the edge.

Soon she was crying out as the sweet tension in her lower body reached a peak and then came crashing down around her, leaving her panting and trembling as he planted soft kisses on her inner thighs.

Rey was still catching her breath when Ben’s lips found hers again, parting for her so she could taste herself on his tongue. Once again she was caught off guard by how something so vulgar could be so thrilling.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you,” he mumbled between kisses, his voice thick and guttural.

Rey’s thoughts were racing to keep up with her body, so she only managed a stifled groan in response.

“Was it okay?” he asked, a hint of concern in his voice that was in stark contrast to the confidence with which he kissed her.

“Seriously?” she panted, unsure if he was joking.

“I could try again,” he muttered, “if it wasn’t good, I mean.”

Rey pulled back and stared at him, dumbfounded. She studied his face and realized with a start that he was embarrassed.

“It was really good,” she assured him, although the words felt silly and pathetic compared to how incredible it had actually been.

“Really? It’s just…I’ve never done that before, so…”

_That_ was unexpected.

“You’ve never…?” she asked, not quite believing what he was implying. Could he really have as little experience as she did? “You just seemed so….um,” she scrambled for the right words. “It seemed like you knew what you were doing,” she finished lamely.

“It just felt right,” he admitted, the confidence creeping back into his voice.

He placed a hand on her thigh and dragged his fingertips across her skin and back up to her swollen center. He slipped a finger inside – eliciting a strangled gasp from Rey – and then stretched her with a second finger. She was wet and warm, and her muscles clenched around his fingers, savoring the fullness.

Ben moaned her name and stared at the place where his fingers entered her, as if mystified by their connection.

“I want more, Rey.” He was still staring _there_ , as if unable to tear his eyes away. Maybe she should have felt overly-exposed, but Rey didn’t think she was capable of feeling shy around him any longer.

“Me too.”

Ben removed his fingers with a wet squelch and ran the same hand up and down his length, coating himself in her slickness. And then he was positioning himself at her entrance and pushing inside, cautiously at first but quickly adjusting as she stretched out to take all of him.

If they felt desire before, it was nothing compared to the scorching need that devoured them now.

It didn’t matter that neither of them had any experience, or that they had no idea how this was _supposed_ to work. It didn’t matter that he had died on Exegol, or that she had been alone for five months. It didn’t matter that they had no idea how this thing between them would work, or if it _could_ work. The only thing that mattered was this moment…this moment of perfect connection that seemed to stretch on for seconds or for lifetimes.

And yet it didn’t feel like quite long enough when Rey’s body began to shake, or when Ben’s breath started to come in ragged gasps. And it definitely wasn’t long enough when a dam broke inside of Rey and came crashing through her in waves of pleasure, or when Ben responded by spilling himself inside of her as she throbbed around him.

Rey missed it as soon as it was over. Before it was over, even. She was still trembling, muscles clenching and unclenching in her core, when the sadness hit her even harder than the orgasm. Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes and she couldn’t contain the heartache that consumed her. Ben was still on top of her – still _inside_ her – when she covered her face with her hands and began sobbing.

“Kriff, Rey, I’m sorry!” he stammered, horrified. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head behind her hands, but couldn’t bring herself to speak. How could she explain what she was feeling? How could she explain that five months of grief had hit her in a single wave? That now that she had held him, and kissed him, and felt him _inside of her_ , she couldn’t bear to lose him again?

He scrambled off of her in a panic, grabbing her wrists and peeling her hands from her face.

“Please talk to me, Rey. Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt.” _At least not the way he means_.

Ben sat next to her with his back against the wall and pulled her into his lap, burying his face in her neck and stroking her back with impossibly gentle hands.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he begged, the hum of his voice vibrating against her throat.

Rey sniffed back another round of tears, allowing his calming demeanor to soothe her storm of emotions. After a long moment she was composed enough to admit her biggest fear:

“I don’t want to lose you again.”

Ben’s shoulders slumped around her and air left his lungs in a terrible sigh, as if she had just put words to something unspeakable.

“I don’t want to lose you either, Rey. I _never_ wanted to. But,” he inhaled shakily against her neck, “but that doesn’t change what I said to you before. I can’t give you what you want.”

A pit formed in Rey’s stomach, so intense it nearly took her breath away. She pulled away from him, wanting to look straight into his eyes as she told him how very wrong he was.

He stared back at her with fresh tears in his eyes. Rey swallowed the lump in her throat, unsure of how to persuade someone that was so convinced they knew what was best.

“This is what I want,” she said, placing a hand on his bare chest, directly over his heart. “You’re giving it to me just by being here.”

“And what about a family? Or your friends? You think they’ll just be happy for you to live here on Tatooine forever with the dead ex-Supreme Leader?!”

“We wouldn’t have to stay here,” she pleaded, desperation now thick in her voice. “You could come back with me to the Resistance base. I’m sure—”

“Yes I’m sure Dameron and the stormtrooper will be more than happy to accept me into the group, especially when they can’t even see me!”

“Finn is Force-sensitive, so he can probably see you!”

“Great, so he won’t have any chance of not recognizing me.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, and it stung Rey more than she wanted to admit. But she wasn’t about to let him win this argument.

“You’re just making thin excuses, Ben! Nothing you said makes me not want to be with you!”

“I know you better than you know yourself, Rey. You would never be able to give up your friends, not even for me. Not permanently. And I would never ask you to give up having your own family. You’re _not_ making that sacrifice for me!”

“Stop acting like everything is an ultimatum! My friends _are_ my family, and they want me to be happy! You underestimate them because you don’t _know_ them; they trust me and they’ll come around to the idea.”

“That—that’s not…” Ben grasped for a rebuttal, but couldn’t find one. Rey felt an inkling of smugness at the small victory, but she knew he was far from convinced.

“I’ll tell them what happened between us, Ben. How you sacrificed yourself for me. There’s no punishment anyone can inflict on you that’s worse than the one you inflicted on yourself!”

“They won’t forgive me as easily as you did,” he argued. “They won’t forget all the evil things I did just because I did one good thing in the end.”

“Leia forgave you. That will be enough for them.”

She could see the way her words cut straight to his core. Maybe it was a low blow to bring up his mother, but Rey wasn’t trying to play fair. He hadn’t exactly set a precedent for playing fair, had he?

“My mother and uncle wouldn’t want you to waste your life away with me,” he insisted, clearly not ready to give up the fight. “They would want you to move on…to go pass on your knowledge of the Force. Otherwise the Jedi die with you.”

“And why should I take on that responsibility by myself? You’ve had decades of training, in the Light and Dark side of the Force. You should be there to help me.”

“How can I make you understand that I’m dead, Rey?!”

“So?!” she exclaimed, almost in tears with frustration at his insistence. “You’re here now, aren’t you?” She grabbed his face in her hands to emphasize the point. “You’re here, talking to me, _touching_ me.”

He grabbed her hands in one of his own and placed them in her lap. When he spoke there was a new calmness about him. “But we’re talking about training Force-sensitives, younglings. That’s completely different, Rey.”

“Why? There’s a precedent for fallen Jedi _and_ Sith to guide their students in the ways of the Force. Qui-Gon Jinn did it for Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan and Yoda did it for Luke,” she explained, rather proud of her recall of the Jedi that Leia had taught her about. “And Luke’s done it for me. I don’t see why you can’t.”

Ben gaped at her, mouth slightly ajar, carefully considering her words.

“What’s stopping you from helping me train new Force-users?” she asked, genuinely curious.

He closed his mouth, jaw clenching and unclenching as he contemplated her question.

Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”

“Then _stay_.”

She _needed_ him to stay.

“And what about when you decide you’re ready to have your own family? Not friends that you consider family, but an _actual_ family? Children?”

“I, of all people, know that blood isn’t the most important thing. I don’t need to _have_ children to raise them. I would have given anything for someone to take me in when my parents left.” She stared at Ben, trying to convey her sincerity through her eyes as well as her words. “Do you think your mother’s parents loved her less because she didn’t share their blood?”

That left him speechless.

“And just because you can’t grow old with me doesn’t mean I don’t want to grow old with you. This lifetime is going to pass in the blink of an eye, and then I’ll become a part of the Force, too. But I don’t want to wait until then to be with you.”

“Rey,” he said, and that single word held so much awe and adoration that it drew the breath straight out of her lungs. His eyes were still glazed with tears, but his face held hope. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll stay.”

“I love you, Rey,” he whispered. And then more loudly, “I love you.”

Rey blinked away the tears that formed in her eyes, but still they blurred her vision. A smile broke out across his face – a smile breathtakingly reminiscent of the one he’d given her on Exegol – and she really began to cry. Her own mouth formed a smile that bordered dangerously close to a grimace as the corners of her lips twitched downwards. But it wasn’t sadness. It was unbelievable joy…the kind that made you feel untouchable, like you could never be anything but happy for the rest of your life. He was _here_. And he was going to stay.

She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, crying unabashedly.

He kept repeating the words _I love you_ into her hair as he held her tightly, unwilling to let go now that he knew he could stay.

▪ ▪ ▪

The _Millennium Falcon_ rose into the air, hovering above Anchorhead for a moment as its pilot took a last long look at the vast desert in the distance. Her home for half a year, now just a speck on the horizon. Rey spun the ship around, aiming for the open sky and the darkness of space beyond it. She didn’t think she’d ever be back here, and that was okay.

Her co-pilot beeped from beside her, expressing its own happiness at leaving this dusty planet far behind.

“C-3PO lived on Tatooine for years,” Rey stated matter-of-factly, “so just be glad we only stayed for six months.”

BB-8 chirped in dismay, and Rey smiled warmly at the droid. She knew BB-8 was just as excited to see their friends as she was, and she was overjoyed to return the loyal droid to Poe.

Once they’d settled comfortably into hyperspace, Rey yawned widely and rested her head back sleepily against the headrest. It had been a long trek into Anchorhead to get the _Falcon_ , and she’d decided to take a large collection of items from the compound with her. Accordingly, her muscles ached and she was well past the point of exhaustion. And they had a few hours to spare until they arrived at the rendezvous point…

“I’m going to head to the back and take a nap,” she told the droid, standing up and stretching her limbs.

The droid beeped a question at her, and Rey flushed with embarrassment.

“Yes, I’m really going to take a nap,” she insisted, rolling her eyes.

The droid responded with disbelief, and Rey couldn’t help but laugh as she left the cockpit and headed for the sleeping quarters. Ever since she’d explained Ben’s reappearance to BB-8, the droid had made sure to bring it up in every conversation, without fail. She always reacted with annoyance, but deep down it endeared her even more to her cherished companion.

As soon as she entered the bedroom she threw herself onto the nearest bed, curling up on her side and making sure to occupy less than half of the cramped space. She closed her eyes, sighing into her pillow and allowing her muscles to relax.

Quietly, almost inaudibly, she whispered into the pillow:

“Be with me.”

The mattress sank down behind her, and strong, warm arms snaked around her body. And his deep voice responded,

“I’m here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Maybe someday we'll get a more satisfying canon conclusion to our Reylo romance, but until then we have fan fic!
> 
> Let me know if you liked it :)

**Author's Note:**

> Part Two should be posted within a week!


End file.
